18. A Hot and Reasonable Doubt
18
A HOT AND REASONABLE DOUBT
Ruby
Shorts and T-shirt, skirt and tank top, or sundress? What on earth did you wear to a…stakeout?
Was this even a stakeout?
No, I decided. It was an intel-gathering mission. My role was getaway driver and diamond babysitter.
That didn’t help me decide what to wear though. My hotel bed was littered with clothes. I grabbed the pink bikini with polka dots, tugged it on, pulled a sundress over it, and slid my feet into flip-flops. There. Seemed a suitable choice.
As I grabbed my purse, someone rapped on the door, and I froze. I wanted to be in the lobby to meet Jake at two. Last night, my resolve hadn’t wavered—it had collapsed entirely at the club when I’d dragged him into the bathroom and demanded an O. Jake in my room? That would be too tempting.
But I’d have to woman up. Stay strong. Resist that dirty-talking, cocky, I-can-pick-a-lock-and-make-you-come-hard man.
Another knock sounded.
I smoothed my dress. I was steel. I could do this.
But my willpower took a hit as soon as I opened the door. Even in the cheesy palm-tree print button-down shirt and touristy hat, Jake just did it for me.
Those arms, so firm and powerful. That ink that hinted at his secrets. His hands, so powerful as he’d grabbed my hips and held me still when he devoured me in the club’s bathroom.
Then, those eyes. Those see-into-my-soul green eyes that crinkled at the corners.
But most of all, my gaze lingered on his lips. I was intimately acquainted with his talented mouth.
I drew a steadying breath. “Let me just grab the stone,” I said.
I started to close the door so I could leave him in the hallway before I spontaneously combusted, but he stuck his foot out, stopping me. “I’ll join you.”
I waved him off. “That’s okay. I’ll be super fast.”
He flashed me a dirty grin. “I want to test my willpower to resist you.”
Well, if it was going to be a challenge… I opened the door and beckoned him in. “And mine,” I muttered.
“I didn’t see much of yours last night,” he said, lips crooking up.
“Same for you,” I said as he walked inside.
“I showed you other things though,” he said with a smirk, reminding me why I’d liked him so very much when we’d met. He had charisma and charm.
“Nice costume,” I said, turning to a lighter subject as I shut the door behind him. The more we talked about touching, the more likely I’d shed my willpower all over again.
Jake gestured to his getup. “I know you’re a big fan of the way I look in Hawaiian shirts.”
“You definitely look one hundred percent tourist.” I gestured to the small room. “Home sweet home…for now,” I joked. My tour supplies—snorkels, mesh bags full of underwater masks, as well as plenty of climbing gear—were distributed over the beige tile floor. The nightstand held both a paperback and my Kindle, and the bed was covered in clothes and my assortment of bikinis.
“You could start a bathing suit shop,” he remarked.
“I’m considering buying stock in bikinis.”
“It’s like an explosion.”
“I couldn’t decide what to—” I broke off. Admitting my indecision about my clothes seemed to be admitting my indecision about other things. Yesterday afternoon, we’d agreed hands off was best, but after we were very hands—and lips—on last night at the club, I didn’t know how to act.
“Didn’t know what to wear this afternoon?” Jake’s tone wasn’t jokey or sarcastic. It was soft and vulnerable. He gazed at me as if he wanted my admission. It made me want to say yes to anything he asked.
This was so much tougher than I’d expected.
I nodded, and he stepped closer. His hand hovered barely an inch over my skin, tracing an invisible line from my shoulder along my breasts, down my belly to my hip. My breath rushed out hard as hot shivers followed his movement. Even without touching me, the sensations, the mere possibilities, ignited me.
This was precisely why I didn’t want him in my room. My body asked for one thing. My mind told me to focus on the job.
“What you chose is perfect.” His voice was low and gravelly and so damn sexy. His fingertips brushed against my waist and my resistance started to collapse.
Somehow, I managed to move away from him and over to the safe. I began to key in the code, but suddenly, Jake was behind me, his hand covering mine, his chest pressed to my back, evoking that same sweet ache he’d sparked on the dance floor and stoked to a flame in the bathroom. It pulsed in my belly, demanding I move closer, right there, where I was aligned with the length of his strong, sturdy body.
“What are you doing?” I asked when his fingers wrapped over mine on the keypad.
He brushed his lips over my shoulder. I wanted to turn, grab him, and pull him to the bed. Push the stakeout back an hour to satisfy this sweet ache.
To answer me, Jake whispered a sequence of five numbers. My neck prickled a warning and I tensed, frozen as he punched in those numbers on the safe and the door popped open. Then I unfroze, spinning around within the circle of his arms, astonished and suspicious. “How did you do that?”
He shrugged with a smile that could melt panties. “Told you I could open safes.”
He bent his head and dusted another soft, barely there, almost chaste kiss onto my neck. I pressed my hand to his chest, refusing to focus on that kiss. I was curious to know how he’d pulled that off anyway. The kiss on my neck was a distant memory. “But how ?”
“Ariel,” he said casually. “Two, seven, four, three, five.”
My nickname, letters translated into their corresponding number on a phone dial-pad. “But you guessed it so fast.”
His laugh was resonant and genuine. “Don’t be embarrassed. How many people have even seen a touch-tone phone?”
“I’m not embarrassed,” I lied, and nudged him away from the safe so I could reach in and grab the box with the diamond Eli had given me. “Just because you made me look stupid for thinking my code was clever.”
“As long as it’s not also your debit card,” he teased, his sunshine eyes lighting up.
“No. It’s not,” I said, disgruntled.
“People usually choose familiar words for their combinations,” he explained with a shrug, like figuring me out was nothing to him when it was something to me. I didn’t want to be obvious. “Understanding habits and human nature is part of my job.”
“So you weren’t kissing me to melt my resistance so I’d give up the code?” I asked though it sounded rhetorical even to my ears immediately. He hadn’t needed to get me to give it up. He’d guessed it, kiss or not.
Which meant the kiss was just a kiss. And credit given where credit was due.
Him—mind and mouth.
He shook his head, looking pleased. “I was just kissing your neck because you smelled so damn good and I couldn’t help myself. You looked ridiculously sexy in front of the safe.”
That was a hell of a compliment—one I’d definitely never heard before. One I enjoyed a lot. “It says a lot that a locked safe is a turn-on for you.”
“A beautiful woman in front of a locked safe,” he corrected in a voice like velvet. “Two things that are a pleasure to unlock.”
Heat crept up my neck as if he’d kissed me there again. Why did he have to be so irresistible?
Clutching the box to my chest like a shield against his charm, I brushed past him to where I could breathe without my head filling with his scent. “How about we get to work unlocking this mystery first.”
A deep, throaty chuckle followed me, then we left the hotel room and set the next phase of our plan into motion.
* * *
I drove to the diamond district, all focused. We’d strayed out of the “just business” lane last night—and when he picked me up—but now my nerves were all tied to the task in front of us. That involved trusting Jake in a more material way, so I recapped the plan, calming those nerves as best I could. “So, you’re going to take my diamond into the shop and find out as much as you can about where it came from,” I said as I looked for parking on Wayboard Street, but not too close to International Diamonds. As Jake had pointed out yesterday, I could be recognized. “You have your cover story?”
“Did I mention that I’ve done this before?” The question came out more wry than usual.
“Only a few dozen times. And showed off your skills.”
“Oh, you haven’t seen a fraction of my skills, Ariel.”
I tamped down the flutters that happened every time he used that husky, tantalizing tone. “I’m serious,” I said. With the narrow roads, I could only steal a glance at him, but his lips were quirked in a crooked smile.
“Yes. I have my cover. I’m having the stone evaluated for my sister,” he explained, taking pity on my nerves. “Whose cheating husband gave it to her to win her back. She wants to turn it into a nest egg in case he strays again and she kicks him to the curb.”
That had enough truth to be plausible and uncomfortable—Eli had cheated on my mom and given expensive gifts in place of fidelity. And then demanded them back in the divorce. It would never have occurred to Mom to hide something away in, say, a foreign bank. When she’d had money put aside, she’d given it to her husband without strings attached.
I parked the car, but was still lost in thought, hands on the wheel. Jake covered my icy hand with his warm one. “You still with me?” he asked gently.
I nodded a few more times than necessary, then gulped. “This is how we find out if Eli bought diamonds to hide his money and get it out of the mainland US, right?” I knew the answer— yes —but I had to ask anyway. I was only an amateur detective after all. But the reminder of the goal calmed my erratic pulse.
He hummed, a note of concern. “Ruby,” he said, carefully.
“Yes?”
“Are you doubting he pilfered funds from the business and its clients?”
The truth?
I was.
And it bothered me that I was stuck on this issue.
Why was it more painful to think of my stepdad as a thief than simply an unfaithful husband, as he’d been? I suppose I was still bothered by the very real possibility that he’d given me a gift bought with stolen money. That was a new level of, well, gross. It was so beyond tacky that I’d almost hoped it would be too tacky for him.
But I was doubting myself more. So I answered truthfully when I said, “I’m doubting my sanity for handing a diamond that could give my mom years of security to someone I’ve known for two days.”
He took my point seriously. “So follow me to International Diamonds and make sure I go inside.”
That was a fair offer. I appreciated it, but it posed other issues. “What if someone sees us together? Or saw us dancing at Sapphire last night, and they spot you getting out of the car?”
Jake turned in his seat to face me, all the better to give me that lopsided grin. “We’ll tell the truth. We met at the club, where you hit on me.”
I folded my arms. “That’s not how I remember it.”
“You chatted me up non-verbally with your sexy hips and come-hither stare.” His hand skimmed my bare thigh.
“I didn’t even know you were still in the club,” I said, trying to ignore my galloping pulse.
“But as soon as you saw me, you found me irresistible and had to have me.” His thumb stroked above my knee. “So you picked me up and took me back to your room.”
I smirked. This man. The flirt was strong in him. “By way of the club’s restroom?”
“Oh, I think we can be convincing without giving all the details.”
If anyone could read my mind, they wouldn’t have to imagine any of the specifics. I was reliving them all in my head.
“Yeah,” Jake breathed, a low rumble in his throat as he gazed hotly at my face, my neck, everywhere. “That look right there. Utterly convincing.”
With that, he pulled his ball cap low and got out of the car while no one was near.
If he could get information half as well as he could get me hot and bothered, he was going to come back with a gold mine of clues.